What Hawai‘i’s seaside fish ponds can teach us
One of the many benefits of blogging, and perhaps the biggest reason I still do it, is that I have such thoughtful readers, people who care deeply, and who will gently coach me through rough spots, whether small spots, as in helping me write better (run on sentence now in progress…) or larger spots, such as with the emotional roller coaster of the Sendai earthquake and tsunami.
For instance, Dan Oestreich wrote this for me on Talking Story:
Another friend has often said to me that these problems, whether natural disasters or the disasters we make for ourselves in our too small self-involved world, are all teachers.
May we learn.
So in thinking about this, I wrote an update in the comments of Waiakauhi Pond will heal. We will too — which was posted on my blog Sunday in a flood of emotional sharing, serving as an example of how impulsive I can be even days later. I then thought the update should be here, on Ho‘ohana Aloha too, for blog comments are so easily hidden. Mahalo Dan, and thank you to all of you who have commented there, and via email or tweet.
Post Update: People have asked me about the significance of Waiakauhi Pond ~ you know me too well, reading into my title as you are! I’m thinking about doing a follow-up post to explain a bit more, but meanwhile, these are good articles about the work marine biologist, and very good friend David Chai has done there:
1. On Golden Pond, Hana Hou Magazine
Chai had fallen into an anchialine pond, one of Hawai‘i’s most threatened and mysterious ecosystems. These seemingly landlocked bodies of brackish water are found along the Islands’ coastal lava flows, connected to the ocean via subterranean caves, tunnels, cracks and crevices. In the United States, these habitats exist only in the Hawaiian Islands, with the vast majority of the 700 or so ponds and pools found on the Big Island.
2. Hawaii Island Biologists Restores Ancient Hawaiian Fishponds, Diane Ako for KHNL via HawaiiNewsNow
Chai and his staff restored 14 ponds in the mid 90’s. The 2 ½ acre Waiakauhi is his crowning achievement. The fully restored fishpond tees with life. Native grasses fringe the perimeter, while indigenous Hawaiian fish swim occasionally burst through the surface with a jump or a fin. The early Hawaiians used the ponds, so Chai stocked this one with fish and shrimp like “awa, milkfish; mullet, ama ama; papio, aholehole, manini- all traditional Hawaiian fishpond fish.” In the middle of the pond are several islands, which Chai built for native birds like these endangered Hawaiian stilts. “Islands afford protection from mongoose, cats and rats. So they really need islands to be protected.”
David also leads the stewardship efforts with the ponds at Kona Village.
The Ku‘uali‘i fishpond pictured above in my post is the largest one at ‘Anaeho‘omalu Bay at Waikoloa, and as happened at Waiakauhi, a significant portion of the sandbar protecting it was cut into by the tsunami surge this past Friday, opening the pond up to the sea.
The significance of this, is that they essentially can no longer be considered true anchialine ponds which are defined as ponds with brackish water, having no surface connection to the sea, yet exhibiting tidal rhythms due to a subsurface connection through cracks and crevasses. Anchialine ponds are exposed portions of the groundwater table, and a window into the vast underground realm where virtually nothing is known about numerous creatures that inhabit the earth’s darkness below us. Rare and unique groups of aquatic creatures inhabiting this subterranean realm will come to the pools of the anchialine ponds to feed.
One of the Kūki‘o anchialine ponds
There are more sites inbetween of course, but if I had ordered my post photos the way the shoreline proceeds from North to South, they would have appeared this way (numbers are as pictured above):
~ Waikoloa
‘Anaeho‘omalu Bay at Waikoloa (3)
Coconut grove at Ku‘uali‘i fishpond (6)
Within the Milo Tunnel at ‘Anaeho‘omalu (10)
~ Kona Village
A hale at Kona Village Resort (5)
The fishponds of Kona Village Resort (7)
~ Hualalai
Sunset at the Four Seasons Hualalai at Pahui‘a (9)
Shoreline reflections at the Four Seasons Hualalai (8)
Waiakauhi Pond, at Hualalai (1)
~ Kūki‘o
Natural wave erosion at Uluweluwelu Bay, Kūki‘o (2)
Kikaua Point Park, Kūki‘o (4)
I live in the ahupua‘a of Waikoloa, and much of the setting of my book, Managing with Aloha, was the ahupua‘a of Ka‘ūpūlehu, which includes Kona Village, Hualalai and Kūki‘o, thus, my mana‘o.
My most recent photos of our pond habitats were taken at Kūki‘o in July and August of 2010, and you can see the full photo set on Flickr: Kūki‘o Anchialine Ponds
Click directly on any of the photos above (i.e. in the original post), and you’ll be taken to the Flickr page it comes from… most are in other sets there.
